11.10.10

A note to the Egyptian God Amum: You have no idea how right you were.


Sci-Tech Today

Ancient scholars in Egypt, Mesopotamia and China fretted over the potential of early writing -- cutting symbols into stone and clay -- to upend the culture. Some of the earliest known written documents expressed the anxiety of some in Pharaonic Egypt that the written word would impair memory and turn humans into ignorant fools.
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The Greek philosopher Plato revealed the fears some Egyptians expressed when he wrote of the Egyptian myth that the god Thoth invented writing and then boasted to the chief god, Amun, that it was an "elixir of memory and wisdom."

In reply, Amun predicted trouble for readers and writers.

He said it would cause forgetfulness in writers because they would not use their memory. Moreover, he predicted, readers would give only the appearance of knowing things while remaining "ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise but only appear wise."

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